Sleeping With Angels
by Psyromayniak
Summary: Desitel Fluff, with mild angst. Set post episode 17 of season 8, "Goodbye, Stranger". Dean and Cas drabble (ish) Guaranteed warm fuzzy feeling after reading. (No sex)


From dreams entwined with blood, sweat, and pain, Dean rose sharply into wakefulness. It was sudden, like a shock of cold water or the feeling of inertia as a car breaks without warning. His breathing fast he reached behind his pillow for the familiar coolness of his handgun, all the while searching the darkness before him for threat.

A figure lurched forward towards him, visible in the dimness illuminated by the crack beneath the door, stumbling blindly and hunched over.

'Dean,' its voice rasped; heavy and exhausted.

At once Dean was on his feet, gun forgotten, and hurrying around the frame of his bed to grasp tightly the shoulders of the angel Castiel. He staggered, slumping against Dean's torso.

Cas,' Dean murmured; a pause suspended between them.

In the darkness of the room, _his _room, the closeness of them both... emotion welled in the pit of Dean's stomach. He quashed it, as he always did, vanquishing it with stoicism and the dreadful knowing that he couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't have _attachments; _that it would lead to more pain than he could bear.

'What happened?'

'I-,' the angel's voice wavered, his breathing deep and laboured, 'the Angel Tablet. It's... safe. For now. I used... energy to _seal_ it. _My _energy. Not safe... for long. Need... to rest,' Castiel moved against Dean's support, almost falling, but was held fast. '-to sleep.'

'I, uh, thought you guys didn't need to sleep.' Dean smiled briefly, searching Castiel's eyes, weary and wilted, for... he wasn't sure what, exactly.

'We... don't. Not normally. But I-,' Cas broke away from Dean, lurching towards the bed. 'Just a few hours... I should be... recharged...'

'Okay, okay, I believe you, just' Dean moved with the angel, hands spread in readiness to catch him if he were to lose balance, 'sit down.'

He guided Castiel onto the mattress, his hands moving to remove his overcoat. Cas drew his gaze upward at him, quizzically.

'What are you-,'

'Well, if you're gonna sleep here, in _my _bed - and there aint no other bed I can get you to in this state – then you sure as hell aint gonna sleep wearing your outside clothes. It's not done.' Dean pulled away the coat, Cas' tie and worked gently on the buttons of his shirt.

'Oh,' Castiel paused, eyes closing as fatigue washed over him in a cascade, 'I see.'

Before long Dean had carefully liberated the angel of most of his garments, laying them over the side of a chair and exposing his pale skin, surreally gaunt in the dimness of the room. With tender hands Dean assisted Castiel backwards, up to lay his head on Dean's pillows and tuck him, as a father would a child, underneath his own covers. Castiel seemed to have drifted into unconsciousness as quickly as he had closed his eyes, and Dean took for himself a brief second to gaze at the being before him: from the arch of his shoulders beneath the duvet to the serenity, so rare amongst the so called angels of the lord, upon his face. A smile played fleetingly on his lips as Dean went to turn away.

At once he felt a grasping pressure on his wrist, a weak touch that was filled with such warmth it radiated upwards through his arm and into his chest.

'Wait,' Cas murmured, and Dean dared to glance backwards, to be met with the azure gaze of the angel, 'don't go.'

Dean felt his breath catch in his throat. His pulse quickened as he swallowed and considered.

Dare he?

'Cas, I-,'

'_Please_, Dean. Don't... leave me,' Castiel's voice was rough, strained even, but the desperation in his tone was all too apparent. Dean closed his eyes, his hand lingering with Castiel's momentarily. The building emotion in his stomach began to rise once again and it took all of his strength to suppress it. With a sigh he opened his eyes and met Cas' directly.

'Fine,' he said with a falsified resignation, 'but you breathe a word of this to Sam and I swear-,' Dean puffed quietly, letting the angel's hand drop before making his way to the other side of the bed. 'And no spooning, either,' he added, slipping gratuitously under the covers himself. He let himself relish the proximity, the gentle heat radiating from the man beside him, if only for an instant.

For while the only sound that reached Castiel's ears was their breathing, synchronised, in the close air of the night, made closer by the form of Dean lying next to him.

The last sensation Castiel felt before he succumbed entirely to his fatigue was a great warmth spreading across his back, the soft touch of skin on skin, and a muscular arm encircling his chest.

'Tell _anyone_ about this and you're dead meat,' was the faint yawn that followed, but the angel was already beyond comprehension.


End file.
